No Man's Sky has gone gold

They said things were happening, and they weren't lying.

Developer Hello Games has been teasing something on the No Man's Sky Twitter feed over the past few days, and today the secret was finally revealed: After four years of development, the game has officially gone gold.

It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold. I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions pic.twitter.com/YJoI6JVgxqJuly 7, 2016

The term “gone gold” derives from the practice of creating a “gold master” of a game once it's determined to be fully and finally fit for release. It's done, in other words: Patches notwithstanding, development is over and we'll soon get to actually start playing the thing.

In the case of No Man's Sky, it's an especially momentous event because it was postponed back in May, from a planned release of June until early August. That's a pretty short delay as videogame delays go, but it was still enough to result in “loads of death threats” from angry idiots who didn't want to wait an extra six weeks.

No Man's Sky is set to come out (and is presumably now assured of making it) on August 9. Be sure to check out our March hands-on, in which Chris makes friends with a yeti-rabbit, and enemies with space-gastropods.